Ripple CEO at XRP Apex: Memecoins are “Grossly Overrated”

At XRP Apex 2025, Ripple’s top leaders found themselves on opposite sides of one of crypto’s most debated topics: memecoins. Ripple President Monica Long saw the upside, how meme tokens have unexpectedly helped grow the crypto space, while CEO Brad Garlinghouse wasn’t nearly as impressed.

When asked if memecoins are underrated or overrated, Monica didn’t hesitate:

“I would say underrated in so much as… there are a lot of meme coins that are outright scams… in other cases, some have kind of miraculously become real functioning markets.”

She pointed out that even with all the hype and risk, memecoins have helped push the space forward, bringing in new users, developers, and funding, and even helping build out wallet and blockchain infrastructure.

“Memecoins really drove a lot of the ecosystem buildout… there’s lasting impact from memecoins,” she said, comparing the trend to Ethereum’s 2017 ICO surge. But Brad Garlinghouse was less convinced.

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Garlinghouse acknowledged the frenzy they create and the money they move but underscored that Ripple’s strategy has always focused on building real utility.

“One of the things that Ripple has done well and many in the XRP community have done well is think about it in long arcs of time… We’re trying to build real products for real customers.”

Still, Garlinghouse admitted he had misjudged one memecoin: Dogecoin.

“I used to really speak not so kindly towards Dogecoin… I felt that it didn’t reflect well on our industry… But where I agree with Monica—and I think I got wrong—is Elon Musk willed Dogecoin into so much liquidity that like it’s not going away.”

He added, “It is both the chaos and the brilliance,” referring to DOGE when asked which crypto meme best captures the industry’s wild nature.

In a light-hearted moment that got the crowd buzzing, Garlinghouse joked about finally buying into the meme frenzy himself.

“If I did buy one, I’d buy the ‘All the Money XRP’ memecoin,” he said with a grin.

To which Monica quickly replied, “Now you have to. Well, now you have a homework assignment.”

Even the mention of the fictional XRP-themed memecoin sent a ripple (pun intended) through the crowd and probably spiked a few speculative Google searches.

Chaos or Catalyst? Memecoins Keep Dividing the Crypto World

What made this moment more than just entertaining was how clearly it showed the divide among even the top names in crypto when it comes to memecoins.

Monica Long sees them as an unexpected but powerful way to bring people into Web3, helping grow the ecosystem in the process. But Brad Garlinghouse is more cautious. He thinks memecoins can take attention away from real innovation and make the whole industry look bad, especially to critics like Senator Elizabeth Warren.

“It just reflects badly on those of us in the industry trying to build real products… and then you have elected leaders like Elizabeth Warren who focus on these negative use cases,” Garlinghouse said.

However, both parties concur that Dogecoin, once dismissed as a mere joke, has now achieved deep liquidity and global recognition. As memecoins such as Pepe memecoin, Bonk, and Shiba Inu persist in their popularity on crypto Twitter, the focus is not on their permanence, but rather on the lasting impact they will have.